There are no heroes here. No glorious moments of blood and fire. Just a man, his past, his daughter, and a slow-burning revolution that sparks across 450-some pages and leaves near every Fool broken and buried in its path.

Koontz has had a long and consistently best-selling career, encompassing horror, science fiction, fantasy, and straight-up thrillers, and he’s rarely stumbled. The Hawk series...is among his best work.

“Endling the Last” is perhaps not quite so perfect a book as “The One and Only Ivan.” In reaching for wild adventure, a big cast of characters and a complex fantasy world, Applegate has sacrificed a little poetry and clarity. But if it sometimes feels a little messy, it also feels triumphant.

There is nothing new under the fantasy sun, of course, and The Lifters is a familiar kind of tale for eight to 12-year-olds, one where a family’s unhappiness is reflected in a dark power that threatens to destroy everything. Yet there is a distinctly original feel to the way it’s told that sets it above many other examples of the genre.

Not even a writer of McCall Smith’s benevolence can provide a happy ending for every character who deserves it here. But he leaves you thinking that they’ve each had a bite of the apple and that all in all, that’s a pretty wonderful gift to have been granted.

Here, the comfortable Wild West formula, sure pacing, and sympathetic protagonists take well to the Antarctic topsoil. Offbeat global-warming sci-fi that taps the spirit of cowboy romances instead of the usual dystopianism.